I coach a
lot of songwriters who are interested in learning how to license their
music. In my experience a lot of the
writers I work with seem to be looking for some sort of an insider secret into
how the business works and how they can license more of their music. And of course there are many “ “ insider tips
and information that if you know about will certainly increase your chances of
getting your music licensed. It’s
important that you learn about what types of music gets licensed and the proper
formats that you should submit music in for example. You should educate
yourself about how licensing contracts work and the different types of deals
that exist and so on.
The more informed you are about the business the greater your chances of
being successful become and the more you know the more informed you’ll be when you start signing deals.

But, with
that said, there is one really simple thing you can do that will GREATLY
increase your chances of success, perhaps more than any other sort of “insider”
tip about the music licensing business.
What is it? Well, it’s simply
submitting more of your music more often and connecting with people in the
business more often. This seems to be a stumbling
block for a lot of artists, they’re not
sure how to get started and they want to make sure all their ducks are in a row
so to speak before they take any action.
Now to a certain extent this is a good thing. You DO want to be informed about the business
and of course you want to make sure you’re submitting music that is strong and
meets the standards required to be licensed and compete in the licensing
marketplace.

BUT…. once
you have music you feel good about and you’ve educated yourself about how the
business works THE MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is to get your music to the
people who can help you license it. This
is one of those things that is so obvious that it seems almost to obvious to
point out. Of course you should be doing this! But over and over this is the step I see
writers confused about. It’s like
they’re looking for some sort of secret path to getting their music licensed
that will allow them to bypass the work of reaching out, submitting their
music, networking and so on. It doesn’t
exist. Seriously. IT DOESN’T EXIST.

Licensing
your music is like building a business.
And in any business there is simply some good old fashioned “hard work”
that is required to succeed. In my
program, “The 90 Day Music Licensing Challenge” I challenge writers to submit
to one new lead every day for 90 days.
Many writers have taken the program and gone on to succeed in both
licensing their music and forming new relationships. Why? It’s real simple, it’s the result of simply
taking consistent action towards the goal of licensing music.

When I
first started taking shots at breaking into the business I wasn’t very
successful. It wasn’t until I made a
very deliberate and consistent effort to license my music that I ended up
succeeding. You can accomplish great
things in life by simply being really, really persistent. If at your first you don’t succeed is an old cliché,
but it’s a cliché because it’s true.

I’ll have
more information about The New Years 90 Day Music Licensing Challenge soon that
will be starting in January. But in the
meantime, think about what you can do today, right now, to move your career
forward. Are you already creating great
music? Is your production up to par? If
so, what can you do right now to start generating income from your music? Is there a place you can send your music to? Is there a lead you can follow up on? Is there a phone call you can make? Your Music isn’t going to license itself and
it’s highly doubtful that someone is going to come looking for you. Decide what your goals are and make them
happen!